Date and time format - ISO 8601
What is ISO 8601?
ISO 8601 describes an internationally accepted way to represent dates and times using numbers.
When dates are represented with numbers they can be interpreted in different ways. For example, 01/05/12 could mean January 5, 2012, or May 1, 2012. On an individual level this uncertainty can be very frustrating, in a business context it can be very expensive. Organizing meetings and deliveries, writing contracts and buying airplane tickets can be very difficult when the date is unclear.
ISO 8601 tackles this uncertainty by setting out an internationally agreed way to represent dates:
YYYY-MM-DD
For example, September 27, 2012 is represented as 2012-09-27.
What can ISO 8601 do for me?
ISO 8601 can be used by anyone who wants to use a standardized way of presenting dates and times. It helps cut out the uncertainty and confusion when communicating internationally.
The full standard covers ways to write:
?Date
?Time of day
?Coordinated universal time (UTC)
?Local time with offset to UTC
?Date and time
?Time intervals
?Recurring time intervals
ISO 8601:2004 is applicable whenever representation of dates in the Gregorian calendar, times in the 24-hour timekeeping system, time intervals and recurring time intervals or of the formats of these representations are included in information interchange. It includes
?calendar dates expressed in terms of calendar year, calendar month and calendar day of the month;
?ordinal dates expressed in terms of calendar year and calendar day of the year;
?week dates expressed in terms of calendar year, calendar week number and calendar day of the week;
?local time based upon the 24-hour timekeeping system;
?Coordinated Universal Time of day;
?local time and the difference from Coordinated Universal Time;
?combination of date and time of day;
?time intervals;
?recurring time intervals.
ISO 8601:2004 does not cover dates and times where words are used in the representation and dates and times where characters are not used in the representation.
ISO 8601:2004 does not assign any particular meaning or interpretation to any data element that uses representations in accordance with ISO 8601:2004. Such meaning will be determined by the context of the application.
Abstract from the iso.org
Anyone follows this as a good and international practise. Which are the countries who have adopted it for implementation.
In India it is just the reverse, DD-MM-YYYY
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